Bowie bank backers forced into line

The US Internet bank USABancShares - the backers behind David Bowie's Web bank -has agreed to measures drawn up by the US Federal Reserve to secure its finances. The Federal Reserve has released details of the agreement with the USABancShares, stating "their common goal to restore and maintain the financial soundness" of the bank. According to Reuters, the company will not be able to pay any dividends or incur futher debt without the Reserve's approval. ...more

Adobe issues Acrobat security update

Adobe has updated several versions of its Acrobat and Reader software to address a highly critical security vulnerability. The update concerns a vulnerability that potentially can be exploited by malicious people to compromise a user's system. The vulnerability is caused due to an unspecified boundary error in the core application plug-in and can be exploited to cause a buffer overflow when a specially crafted file is opened. ...more

Google Maps goes to Mars

Google Maps has made a giant leap beyond even the moon to give Googlers their first close up of Mars. You don't get the complete picture, but the locations of pretty much every landing, successful or otherwise, are depicted along with many of the most important geographical features such as Valles Marineris. The images were snapped some 250 miles out by a series of orbiting instruments: the Mars Orbiter Laser Altimeter (MOLA) creates a map colour-coded by altitude while the Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC) offers a visual depiction of the red planet. ...more

Intel puts the surf into surfboard

When you think of California what comes to mind? Images of high-tech Silicon Valley technology, or surfers on Pacific waves? Well, put the two together and you would come up with the very improbable Intel Wireless Technology Surfboard. This rather unique Centrino-based piece of kit will be appearing in the UK for the 2004 GoldCoast Oceanfest, held in Devon 18-20 June. The solar powered board contains a Rock T200 tablet laptop, with a 1. ...more

Sony drives out all-format DVD drives

Tomorrow Sony will announce internal and external all-format DVD burning drives The drives will read and write both DVD-R and DVD+R formats at 2x DVD-RW, 2.4x DVD+R/RW, 4x DVD-R, 8x DVD read, 10x CD-RW, 24x CD-R and 32x CD-read. The speeds are the same across the internal and external drives, with the latter connecting via USB 2. ...more